Time For Baseball Tension: Time for Tension

BASEBALL

Sandy Koufax's curve ball was low and inside. Juan Marichal, 27, ace pitcher (record: 19-9) of the San Francisco Giants, stood in the batter's box and watched it go by. Behind him, Los Angeles Dodger Catcher John Roseboro wound up, took aim and rifled the return throw right past the batter's ear. Marichal spun around. "Why do you do that? Why you do that?" he screamed. Roseboro did not answer. He started straight for Marichal, and in front of 42,807 horrified—or delighted, as the case may be—fans, Marichal swung his bat and clubbed Roseboro, knocking him to the ground and opening a bloody gash in his head.

Instantly, the infield at Candlestick Park was jammed with milling, jostling players trying to separate the combatants—or get in a lick or two of their own. By the time everybody got back to the ball game, 15 minutes later, policemen were guarding the dressing rooms, and both Roseboro and Marichal had been escorted from the park.

Mitigation. League President Warren Giles wasted no time in suspending Marichal for eight playing days and fining him $1,750—biggest fine in the history of the National League. That was too little to satisfy the infuriated Dodgers. "What if he had gone out on the street and clubbed somebody?" demanded one. "He'd have been arrested. It should be a suspension of 1,750 days." Giles granted that Marichal's attack was "repugnant," but took note of mitigating circumstances—"underlying currents," he called them.

The currents were plain to anyone who looked at the top of the National League standings. Last week, with four clubs—the Dodgers, Giants, Milwaukee Braves and Cincinnati Reds—bunched so closely together (within 1½ games) that only a crowbar could pry them apart, the league was in the midst of the tightest pennant race in its history. Two other teams, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies, were also within striking distance of the leaders, and the tension was terrific—especially in San Francisco.

Trouble had been brewing for days, as the Giants and Dodgers squared off in baseball's bitterest rivalry. Twice in two innings, batters practically fell across the plate in attempts to tick the catcher's mitt with their bats and get to first base on interference. The Dodgers' Maury Wills succeeded; the Giants' Matty Alou failed. Pitchers from both clubs traded beanballs. Marichal low-bridged Wills and Ron Fairly. So Koufax took dead aim at Willie Mays. High with the pitch, Koufax hit the backstop instead, growled: "That was a lousy pitch. I meant it to come a lot closer."

Relaxation. By the time they got to New York last week, clinging grimly to their slim, one-game lead, the Dodgers were so nervous that they looked more like candidates for a rest home than for the World Series. They felt even worse before they left. Playing like a team that didn't have a tense tendon to its name, the cellar-dwelling (32½ games behind), happy-go-nowhere New York Mets banged out 25 hits in three days and took three straight games from the Dodgers.